Theatre Review: Purpose Is a Masterpiece

Best Play I've Seen This year

When I stepped into The Helen Hayes Theater to see Purpose, I wanted to support the show because of the all Black cast, and had no expectations. Little did I know I would have a powerfully nuanced theater experience that I will hold in my heart from this day forward. Purpose is the kind of play I’ve always loved and yearned to be in. A play about a Black family dealing with the interpersonal family situations that all human beings deal with in their families. Oh, by the way, we Black folks must simultaneously cope with everything that dominant culture throws at us. I left the theater feeling what people must have felt back in the 1950s after seeing A Streetcar Named Desire or Death of a Salesman. I have just witnessed genius.